In Memory of my Father, Glenn Warfield 
Saturday November 2, 2002 by Hal
This is the text of my father’s memorial service which I led on Wednesday, October 30th, 2002. My father went home to be with the Lord on Sunday, October 27th.
I want to thank all of you for attending this memorial service for my father, Glenn Warfield. I hope this will be a celebration of hi life and love for his family and friends. I want to acknowledge today besides my father’s wife, Mary, and his sister, Marge, his other children – my sister, Mary Ann, my sister, Jane, my brother, Jack and my sister Beth and brother Mark.
Please join with me in a moment of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for Glenn’s life. We are grateful for the love he brought to each of us. Be present with us now and provide us with your comfort and your strength – especially comfort and strengthen his wife, Mary, in this difficult time. Let your grace and mercy abound to us now, in Jesus Name, Amen.
Glenn John Warfield was born on November 1st, 1925 to Hiram and Frances McMann Warfield in South Haven, Michigan. Our family history tells us that Dad was being reluctant to enter the world, so Grampa Warfield took Granma on a ride in the car to help “get things started”. Well things “started” as they passed through the small town of Glenn, Michigan and that’s where that part of the story begins. My father was the youngest of four children – his brothers were Donald and Arnie and his sister Marge is with us today.
My father attended and graduated from South Haven High School and entered the Marine Corps where he served during World War II. Glenn was stationed in the Pacific and saw action on Okinawa and other of the Pacific Island campaigns.
He returned after the War and went to work at Everett Piano Company with his father. His dad trained him in what was to become a lifelong career in the hardwood lumber business. I remember as a child my father being gone on lumber buying trips throughout the country. He had a unique lumber-measuring ruler that allowed him to measure and grade the quality of the wood he was buying.
Glenn worked at Everett Piano for 28 years and during this time began another lifelong activity when he took up golf. He played on the company team and, as everyone here knows, played throughout the rest of his life. It was also during these 28 years that me, my sister, Mary Ann, and my brother and sister, Jack and Jane, came along.
After leaving Everett, Dad went to work for Pike Lumber Company in Indiana and quickly outsold their capacity to product lumber; he was that good at what he did. Dad finally settled at Van Kuelen and Winchester Lumber Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan as Vice President of Sales. It was here that he invented new methods of burning wood waste from the saw mill to generate energy and also instituted new programs of lumber import and export from all over the world.
When Dad and Mary retired it was only physically to move here to Florida where Glenn started a new career with the publishers of Hardwood Review Magazine. With his extensive knowledge and experience and his wide range of contacts, Glenn was able to gather information about what was happening day-to-day and month-to-month in the hardwood industry as a whole.
My Dad loved his wire, his children and grandchildren, living here in Florida – he loved taking cruises and tending his fruit trees and especially he loved his friends here and all over the country. And we love him and remember him today.
Please listen with me a moment as we share the familiar words of the Psalm 23.
1The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 6Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Dad, we hope today that the green pastures are trimmed to regulation height and that the still waters are nowhere near the greens.
Everyone here has a story or a memory or something that reminds them of Glenn. In the days to come I hope you will recall him fondly as you go about your daily activities.
Three of my father’s closest friends then came to the podium and spoke of their memories. Ron Peters, Jack Abel, and Peter Phelps all spoke of my father’s friendship, his character, his joy of life, and his willingness to give of himself to others.
My daughter, Olivia, wrote her Grandpa a note:
Ok, here’s what I want to say….. I love my grandpa very much. I didn’t get to see him a lot but I loved him anyway. Whenever we were in Florida we would go visit him. It always made me happy. I really miss him but I know he’s happy right now and that he’s with me in spirit. I know I’ll get to see him again when I’m in heaven but right now I’m happy to be on Earth. I love you grandpa and I’m sorry I couldn’t be there right now. If I were there right now I’d probably be crying and I would embarrass myself but I know that’s normal. I love you and miss you grandpa.
Love, Olivia
As we remember my father today, I would like to share with you from the Scriptures a few verses that I hope will offer each of us additional comfort.
In Second Corinthians chapter 1, the apostle Paul wrote:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.
Each of us should remember that we are here in this life to offer each other the comfort that God has provided for us. Each of us can remember a difficult time in our life where someone else was able to offer us encouragement, a kind word, or a helping hand. My father excelled in all these things and I want us honor him in this way by reaching out the hand of comfort who are distressed or afflicted.
In Second Corinthians chapter 4, Paul wrote:
16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
In this life our sorrows may seem more than we can bear, but Paul calls them momentary and light and he reminds each of us who are living that it is our inner, unseen self that is eternal. So remember to be open to eternal, unseen things as you walk your daily path through life. My father has passed over from this temporary life to the eternal unseen world where nothing decays but exists in God’s glory.
Finally Paul wrote in Second Corinthians chapter 5:
1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
There is so much in this passage for us to consider. First that this mortal life is temporary and that the burdens we experience are a normal condition of our earthly life. Secondly, that our mortality upon death is swallowed up by the eternal life of God. Thirdly, that we are to be of good courage while we are here on earth and forever be reminded that while we live here we are absent from the presence of the Lord.
Courage is defined as “the resistance of fear – not the absence of fear” and that is enough of a job to keep all of us busy throughout this life. So let us walk by faith and not by what we can see. Let us remember that Glenn is absent from the body but at home with the Lord and – remembering his love and kindness above all – have as our ambition to be pleasing to God by loving and caring for one another.
As we closed the memorial service, I read from a letter from Lani Smith, my father’s friend and a composer and arranger of church music. When I was young, Lani had promised my dad that he would do an arrangement of “In the Garden” for my father’s low voice.
That arrangement arrived on October 22, four days before my father passed away. In his honor and memory, and with the help of his accompanist, Miriam Lucas, I sang the song for my father.
May his memory be honored until we all meet again in heaven.